I still haven’t found my old phone. However, a new phone arrived Monday, and so now I’m in touch with the outside world again. It’s a type of phone I’ve never had before, and since it was refurbished, it came without a users manual, so it’s taken me a while to get used to it. It took me a few days to figure out how to insert an SD card. But I finally figured it out, and now if I could get the Google marketplace app to recognize that yes, I really do have a google account (so I can reinstall some of the apps I had found so handy before), we’d be all good to go. Even without that, we’re doing pretty well. And maybe one day the other phone will turn up, and I can finally solve the mystery of what the heck happened.

Meanwhile, I was thinking that not much had happened this week, and then I went back over it, and realized that was not actually true. On Monday I had my last night of teaching for the Swing Club, which was bittersweet but good. I gave Curly the set of computer speakers I’ve been lugging around for years. They originally belonged to the WSU Swing Club, and I kept them in my trunk because I was the main dj. And then the club changed venues to one that had a built in speaker system, so they just stayed in my trunk. Since then the club has dissolved and reformed I think three times. Each time I’ve offered to give them back, but whoever was in the club wasn’t interested. It’s handy for UD to have separate speakers for the Swing I and Swing II classes, so they’ll put them to good use.

I have to admit that it was very weird leaving the building with my swing bag so much lighter than it had been when I went in. However, I think the full reality of it won’t hit until next Fall, when it’s time for Swing Club to start up again, and I won’t be part of it. But let’s not borrow trouble from tomorrow.

I’ve also been working on my garden, not so much in the actual sense, but in the theoretical, planning sense. I saw my landlord the other day, and asked him if it was ok to pull out those stupid bush stumps that are left at the end of my sunroom, and plant roses there. He said that he thought that was a great idea, and said that if we got a good hard rain sometime soon, he’d bring his truck over and pull them out himself. He also ok’d the idea of planting a line of berry bushes along the sunny side of the fence. Though that might not happen this year. (Berry bushes are expensive, yo.)

I’m very glad my landlord gave the go ahead, since I had already ordered my climbing rose – a Viking Queen from Heirloom Roses. And then, because my landlord may or may not remember that he actually made such a promise, I also asked Atlas if he would come dig the stumps out for me. He said yes, and we eventually decided that he would come over Monday and do it. Which is pretty awesome, I have to say, and now I have to figure out what I’m going to feed him to thank him for being so very awesome.

Also, on Wednesday was Administrative Professional’s Day, and since I technically am an Administrative Professional (and for heaven’s sake, can’t we just say Secretary?), the ladies that I work with got together to decorate my desk and things. Usually when we have occasions like this at the office, we get together and buy the lady in question chocolate, or her favorite kind of sweet treat, and have a cake. Except I don’t eat sugar, so that doesn’t really work for me. However, I am rather fond of cheese, so they went to the gourmet grocery store and bought me some nice cheese, and packaged it up with a bunch of cheesy puns (I camembert it!), and presented that to me instead. I have to say, it was one of the most thoughtful office presents I’ve ever received!

Now we’re into the weekend. Last night I had absolutely nothing to do, which was wonderful. Today, however, is going to make up for it. This afternoon I have a birthday thing for one of my friends, followed by heading over to the Family Homestead to set chicken to marinate, and then the Swing Club Spring Swing Dance. Tomorrow is my family birthday brunch, so I’ll have Mass followed by frying up lots of Buttermilk Fried Chicken, and then family time.

Like this:

Last night I was teaching swing with J, who has been my teaching partner ever since Mr. Zoot headed off to the wilds of Ireland in search of Adventure and Life Experiences. When we were finishing up, he told the class that, since next Monday is our last regularly scheduled swing club meeting, it will be my last night teaching too. And, you know, I knew this was coming. It was my idea. I told them last August that this was it, after the year was done I was done too. At times, particularly on Monday evenings when I was especially dragging, or trying to figure out how to teach partner Charleston to four leads and no follows, I was even looking forward to it. Still, it’s different when you realize that, oh wait, that’s next week.

In a lot of ways, this will be the start of a new era for the Swing Club. When I told Bounce that I was going to retire, he decided that this sounded like a good idea, and he was going to retire too. He’s been teaching a lot longer than I have, and was one of my own first teachers. When the club started, he was the instructor along with Red. It wasn’t until the next year that we had enough more experienced dancers that we split them into two classes: Swing I (taught by myself and a variety of helpers until Mr. Zoot became my steady teaching partner), and Swing II (taught by Bounce and Red). So for the last five years we’ve had this relatively steady group of instructors. Now three of the four are leaving, and the club is figuring out where they’ll go from here.

Honestly, I’m not worried about them. They’ll be fine. They have an extremely capable president and group of officers, who will continue to be the leaders for next year. Actually, of all the swing club presidents I’ve worked with, the current one is actually the one I like best, and have most enjoyed working with. They also have J, who is very capable, and they have Red too. So I think they’ll be just fine.

Last week we got our swing club t-shirts for the year. It made me think about all the swing club t-shirts I have in my drawer. They are, in chronological order:

First year: black ink on white, with the Windows clip art stick figures dancing, and the names of all the different vintage swing dances scattered around them.

Second year: vastly more sophisticated, black with white ink, with a James Bond theme (License to Lindy).

Third year: possibly my favorite, the only one I don’t have. It was cobalt blue, with a silhouette of a dancing couple on the front, and a quote from me on the back (“Always follow the lead… within reason”). Unfortunately, while swing dancers instantly and unquestioningly recognized the rather extravagant dip the dancing couple was doing on the front, to non-dancers it looked like they were having very athletic sex. It, um, raised a few eyebrows. (Honestly, that hadn’t even occurred to the swing dancers.) It was after that year that the university insisted that we include the word “dance” in our club title.

Fourth year: a somewhat dull shirt, black with white and red ink (probably a reaction to last year). It had the club title on the front, and some slightly random quote on the back – it sort of had something to do with dancing, but didn’t actually relate specifically to swing dancing, or have anything to do with the club. We’re still not sure how that one got chosen.

Fifth year: teal t-shirt with black lettering spelling out “Step, Step, Triple Step” vertically down the front left side of the shirt, and (I think) the club logo on the back. It’s a pretty good shirt, but this was about when I started getting really burnt out on dancing and teaching, so my reaction was on the lines of, “Oh. A shirt.”

Sixth year: dark red with black and white ink, club title on front, dancing footwork diagrams for Lindy Hop on the back. I particularly like the footwork diagrams, though I have to admit that even swing dancers sometimes have trouble realizing what they are. But then you get to explain it to them, which is fun.

My dears, I could use some help. I need to hear some stories about good men. I know they exist, and I know that I have several of them in my life, but I could use a little reinforcement right now. Lately it seems like the news has been full of too many stories about women abused and raped and brutalized. In the last month at work I’ve had to help employees deal with the fallout from several relationships gone seriously south – divorce, abuse, and general awfulness. (And when your local HR department has to get involved in your breakup, things have gone very wrong indeed.) And then in my personal life there are a couple of situations that are awful – the kind of thing where you can see the train wreck coming, like the slow motion sequence in an action movie, and are powerless to either persuade the person to get out of the line of fire, or escape getting hit by some of the blowback yourself. And it’s getting to the point where it’s just a little hard to take. So if you’ve got any good stories about guys being awesome, doing self-sacrificing things and loving the people around them in mind-blowing sorts of ways, now is the time to share.

And speaking of spreading the love, this is your friendly reminder that Valentine’s Day is just about a week away. If you were going to send anyone a friendly sort of package as part of Operation Valentinus, now would be the time.

All that being said, it’s been an interesting week or so since I blogged last. (I can’t believe time just sortof slipped away from me like that.) Even if this post started on a rather dire note, it was a good week. Last weekend Rosie and AP finally moved into their apartment together (the town house next to Mariah’s). Sae and Fleur came to help. Mariah let Fleur drink caffeine pop with her lunch, so when I headed over to help, I was greeted by a small redhead furiously packing snowballs to throw at Boy-O. She looked at me very intensely, and almost gritted out, “I am very hyper!” To which I replied, “Yup, you are!” Thankfully, this translated into some pretty good fun. I showed Fleur how you can draw smiley faces on trees with snow, which she took to an entirely different level. She started painstakingly sculpting faces onto the tree, determined to get it just exactly right. Unfortunately, she was rather the victim of her own perfectionism. She would get it almost right, and then the next, last touch would be the one that dislodged the entire feature from the tree and she had to start all over. However, she seemed to view this as all part of the fun, and happily sculpted with snow until the obligatory moving-day pizza arrived, and she was distracted again.

The other highlight of my week was getting to see the Harlem Globetrotters in Springfield last Tuesday. I’ve wanted to see the Harlem Globetrotters for years, ever since I saw an ad for their annual New Year’s Eve show when I was a kid. At the time it wasn’t even a possibility – my family was never much for sports, so taking us to see a basketball demonstration when none of us even played basketball wasn’t really anywhere near my parents’ radar. Plus, the cost for taking our massive brood would have been intimidating. So I always put it from my mind. However, I was reminded of them a few years back, and decided that going to see the Harlem Globetrotters at least once in your life is something you should do, like going to the circus. You don’t have to go all the time, but you should go at least once. So I started trying to find people to go with me, which turned out to be more difficult than you would think. But then late last week Flo texted me, and said that the Globetrotters were going to be in Springfield on Tuesday, bleacher seating, tickets not too much, did I want to go. I texted back, “YES!!” and that was it. We were going to see the Globetrotters.

And you know what? The Globetrotters were amazing. Totally amazing. Completely worth the wait. I would go again in a heartbeat. The show was this mix of pure silliness, endearing crowd interaction, and a ridiculous level of mind-blowing skill. It was a little bit like if Cirque du Soleil decided to ditch the funky costumes and the mood music, and go for slapstick, basketball, and having fun with the kids in the audience. I loved every single moment of it.

On Saturday I taught a short swing lesson and DJ’d for the Emmanuel Homeschool Co-op Father/Daughter Dance. That was more fun than I expected. The little girls danced like their lives depended on it. A couple of the dads did too. I think my favorite moment was when I played What Makes You Beautiful, and the whole dance floor just went nuts. I don’t know who danced harder, the little girls, or the dads. It was incredibly sweet. And maybe that’s something I can remember when the general state of male/female relationships looks so bleak – that was a room full of men who love their wives and daughters. So, you know, that’s good.

Other than that, the rest of the week has been quiet. Swing Club started up again, so I’m getting used to having one less night free again. I think I might be starting to recover a little of my dancing mojo that I lost so thoroughly last summer. DJing for the Father/Daughter dance helped a little. For the first time in months I found myself actually kinda wanting to DJ. And this Wednesday, I just might actually go dancing. Probably. I kinda told a few people that I would. I might still fink out on it. But chances are good.

Last Saturday I had a dinner party, a small one, only nine of us, which was a good thing since I only have nine glasses. This was quite different for me. Usually my social SOP is to throw really huge parties two or three times a year, to which I invite absolutely everyone I know. And since my social life also operated as an extension of the Catholic young adult ministry I’ve been doing for the last ten years or so, that was a lot of people, most of whom I liked, but some of whom I didn’t. Plus there’s the swing dancers, but I have a curse that the night I plan a party is inevitably the same weekend as that awesome dancing event out of town that I couldn’t afford to go to, and forgot was happening. Anyway, all kinds of random people show up, and usually it’s a very good time involving much food and drink and possibly games and/or pinatas. Afterwards, I’m generally exhausted, and I don’t schedule anything else for a while.

However, recently I’ve been rethinking things. The thing is that I’m tired. My job is getting more and more demanding, and I can’t sustain the pace of committments that I used to keep up. My old routine of having social/ministry/other obligations every night of the week, which used to just about keep me pleasantly occupied, is now far too much. As much as I love the various activities that used to keep me going, I like being able to pay my bills more. So I’ve got to cut back. At the same time, I’ve come to realize that I need a social life that actually feeds & rejuvenates me. While using my social life as an extension of young adult ministry has brought me a lot of gifts, it also means that too often I haven’t had any respite from caring for other people.

So I’m making some changes. For one thing, I’m planning to step down from my position as the Servant Leader of our group by the end of the year. When I told my Leadership Team about this, they sweetly tried to tell me there was absolutely no need for me to do so, but I figure it’s best to quit while I’m ahead. I’ve also decided to switch my focus from huge social gatherings to which absolutely everyone must be invited, to smaller, more intimate gatherings. Sure, I can’t invite all the people I’d like each time (see above: only nine glasses), but I actually get to talk to the people I invited. And if someone can’t come, or I couldn’t invite them one time, there will always be another dinner. Plus, I’m not completely exhausted the next day. And if last Saturday’s dinner party was any indication, this plan is going to work out really, really well.

It’s so funny to think of having a real dinner party. The very idea reeks of High Society, and the kind of ettiquette you have to dig out of the kind of dusty books that also contain the protocol for things like mourning stationary. I’m modern enough to be quite happy to jettison the formal ettiquette (particularly the convention that says your guests must come evenly paired in gender-balanced couples), while embracing things like getting out the good china, and the vintage damask table linen. Plus, I got to plan a menu like I haven’t in years. It was a lot of fun contemplating exactly what kind of starch would best go with Roasted Pork Loin with Thyme, Garlic and Tomatoes (in the end I went with Hasselback Potatoes), and whether both stuffed celery and deviled eggs might be too much for pre-dinner munchies (I decided to do neither in favor of simpler veggies with hummus and an herbed cheese spread with crackers). I decided not to make a dessert – I don’t eat things with added sugar, so I don’t make them either – but The Duchess volunteered to bring a wonderful apple cinnamon salad she’d put together. That, with a dollop of unsweeted whipped cream, was a perfect to the meal. We had good wine as well – a bottle of Seaport White from Woodbury that I’d been saving for a long, long time (a souvenir of long ago summer vacations), plus half a bottle of Cincinnatus from Vinoklet Vinyards, where we celebrated Mariah’s birthday the weekend before. The original plan was that we would play games after dinner, but we had such a good time sitting around the table together and talking that we never did get to the games. And that was just fine.

My social life isn’t the only thing I’m rethinking. Last night I let my fellow teachers know that this will be my last year teaching for UD Swing Club. Longtime readers of this blog will know how much of a big deal this is for me. My enforced injury-induced time off from dancing this summer gave me the space to really think about what dancing does for me, and to balance what it has given me against the demands it has made both on my time and on my emotional energy. It was so surreal even thinking about not teaching, and possibly not dancing. Being a swing dancer has been part of my core identity for a long time, pretty much since I took that first lesson almost seven years ago. However, the joy I still find in moving to music in communion with a partner has been overshadowed by the difficulty of fighting through way too much relationship and community dysfunction.

There might have been a time when I would have taken this as my wake up call to charge forth and Change Things For The Better, but I’ve seen what happened to others who tried to do just that, and it wasn’t pretty. There aren’t a whole lot of good choices. I am still working through what I am willing and not willing to do regarding swing dancing in general. However, I do know that, as much as I have loved teaching, it’s time to step away from it. And I’m proud of the fact that there are others willing and ready to take my place, dancers whom I taught, who have gone on to far surpass me. I think one of the marks of a good leader is that they are willing to nurture others, so that when they leave, they are not irreplaceable. It makes me feel good knowing that UD Swing Club will do just fine without me, in part because I was willing to love them for a little while.

This seems to be a season of change for me. There are some other changes coming down the pike, things I’m not quite ready to blog about yet. Some of the changes are hard, but I think on the whole they’re good changes. And I know one thing isn’t going to change – I’ll let you know all about it!

On facebook AnniPotts said that the fact that we’re taking days to post about The Duchess’s wedding this past Saturday is proof that a really, really good time was genuinely had by all. I think there’s some truth to this. It was a beautiful wedding, a beautiful day, and a wonderful thing to see my sister joined to the man who is so utterly right for her. The Duchess was gorgeous. Her dress turned out beautifully. Standing in the bright sunshine, with the breeze wafting her exquisite cathedral length veil, surrounded by her bevy of ridiculously adorable flower girls, she looked so perfect it felt like we were in the middle of a really high end perfume commercial. It was a great and good thing.

I’m so glad it’s over.

I did get my dress done in time. Barely. I finished hemming it 15 minutes before the wedding was supposed to start. Every spare moment I had between Wednesday and the wedding was spent sewing. The dress itself came together fairly easily, which was a nice confidence builder after the ordeal of the Cursed Bridesmaid Dress. At the last minute I panicked a little because I couldn’t find my crinoline, which is usually necessary to make these 50s style dresses look right. However, the lining and the dress fabric pleated together at the waist made the skirt just puffy enough that it didn’t need a crinoline after all. I’m pretty pleased about how it turned out. Plus, it really is that magical, mythical creature, the bridesmaid dress you can wear again. In fact, I already have, to work on Monday. It was pretty sweet.

My house is full of flowers. There’s the two buckets still half full of roses in the dining room, the huge cornucopia filled with mums and deep red calla lilies on the table, the long boxes half full of stems and leaves in random corners, the other buckets with bits of leftover greenery, and the plates of forgotten boutonnieres that keep turning up in odd locations. Last night when I was heading out the door to swing club, I found a plate of them (we were storing them on paper plates inserted into ziplock bags) on the floor next to my speaker bag. I think they were the ones that were supposed to go on the fathers of the bride and groom. I grabbed them, and took them with me to swing dancing, where I gave one to Ms. K for being an amazing swing club president, and one to one of the guys in my class for pulling his shirt halfway over his face as a makeshift ninja mask while he crept around his follow after Mr. Zoot told them that they should be swing ninjas. What Mr. Zoot meant was that they shouldn’t be clumping their feet along as if they were wearing iron boots, but the ninja mask was so awesome. And then, when I just about doubled over laughing, he did it again! I think that’s totally boutonniere worthy.

The reason why we have random boutonnieres all over the place is because we made about a million of them. The Duchess had a whole choir of musicians, and lots of readers, plus ring bearers and others, all of whom she wanted to have flowers. So we made a ton of them, with different designs specifically for the different types of people we were making them for. And then, on the morning of the wedding, somehow most of them never made it down to the church. I’m not sure what happened to a lot of them. I haven’t found any more today. But you never know. They’re… lurking.

And now, hopefully, we are done with the Year of Weddings. Frankly, after all the weddings, the holidays are looking a bit like a walk in the park. (Famous last words…) Which reminds me, wasn’t there some Christmas knitting I was supposed to be doing?

Sarah Whittle, coral stitch: You can use different thread thicknesses or change the angle of the knot to give different effects. Coral stitch can be used on straight or curved lines as well as being used as a textured filling stitch. When using as a filling stitch place the knots into spaces between the knots of the previous row .